Summer train to include stop in Wareham

HYANNIS — A pilot seasonal train service last year between Cape Cod and Boston is back on track for this summer — and now will include a stop in Wareham.

PATRICK CASSIDY

HYANNIS — A pilot seasonal train service last year between Cape Cod and Boston is back on track for this summer — and now will include a stop in Wareham.

During a press conference Wednesday at the Hyannis Transportation Center local and state officials basked in the glow of a successful inaugural season and announced the new Wareham stop as well as reduced rates for seniors and passengers with disabilities.

In 2013 the weekend service generated $290,756 in revenue from 16,586 riders from Memorial Day weekend through Columbus Day weekend. It originally was slated to run through Labor Day but was extended.

"We wanted to provide people with more options to get here without cars," Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority Administrator Thomas Cahir said about the effort to bring people to the Cape by train and connect them with other forms of transportation such as buses, ferries and bike trails.

Cahir, who spearheaded the seasonal rail service, said this year it will start May 23 and seniors and people with disabilities will pay half price.

A one-way trip between Boston and Hyannis costs $22. A round-trip ticket costs $40. There are stops in Braintree, Middleboro, Wareham and Buzzards Bay.

The service is also working closely with the Pan-Mass Challenge, an annual bike-a-thon that raises money for cancer research and is scheduled this year for the weekend of Aug. 2, and will provide a late morning and late afternoon train that day to help move volunteers, Cahir said.

"It just happens to be a day when the Yankees are in town playing the Red Sox," Cahir said, eliciting laughter from the crowd gathered in the transportation center's lobby.

Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey said the service's pilot year was so successful that state officials decided to make it permanent.

"Obviously the Cape is a gem when it comes to tourism," Davey said.

Investments in transportation and infrastructure drive the economy, said state Sen. Thomas McGee, D-Lynn, chairman of the Joint Committee on Transportation.

Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce CEO Wendy Northcross said there was $1 billion in direct spending in the tourism industry on Cape Cod in 2012.

On average two domestic visitors who spend the night on Cape Cod spend $700, Northcross said.

For decades some potential visitors have balked at coming to the Cape because of concerns about traffic getting here but the train removes that impediment, she said.